Clara

Who is Clara?

Clara is passionate and genuinely loves Giorgio, but she remains bound by her marriage and unwilling to leave it for him, keeping their relationship confined to stolen visits and letters. Her presence in the story, largely through correspondence once Giorgio is transferred away, represents the comfortable, familiar kind of love he has always known.

As Fosca's uncompromising devotion increasingly occupies Giorgio's attention, Clara's letters come to feel more guarded and conditional by comparison, sharpening the show's central question about what kind of love is actually more real.

Clara's role in Passion

Clara is a supporting role, featured in early love duets with Giorgio and in the recurring letter reading sequences that punctuate the show once he leaves Milan. The part calls for a warm lyric soprano and a performer able to suggest both real passion and self-protective limits.

Marin Mazzie played Clara in the original 1994 Broadway production, helping establish the character as the show's necessary counterweight to Fosca's all consuming intensity.

Clara on stage vs screen

Broadway compared with the 1981 Italian film Passione d'Amore

Laura Antonelli played Clara in Ettore Scola's 1981 film Passione d'Amore. In the musical, Clara's affair with Giorgio runs largely through an exchange of longing love letters, and it ends over her son: she tells Giorgio she cannot leave her husband because of the boy, and when her letter asks him to wait until her son is grown, Giorgio realizes he no longer wants their carefully arranged, convenient affair.

Marin Mazzie originated Clara on Broadway in 1994.

Clara: frequently asked questions